13384: Mason Replies to Senou: 13358: A noble cause: Creole Translator by MIT2

[corbetre@webster.edu]

From: MariLinc@aol.com

Excerpts from Senou's note "A noble cause: Creole Translator by MIT2":

"A Creole translator is being developed by MIT2; this is a noble project that
should be supported. ... Today, our great Creole proverbs, poems, books may
not be read by a larger audience but if the Creole language has a translator
many might be interested. We should support this type of project. Don't say
only good job, keep up the good work, we should send our financial
contribution as well to this unique institution, which has embraced this
noble project or invest in it. Now your first question will be what is the
ROI (Return on Investment) the ROI cannot be measured only [i]n money but
what this can do for our Creole language. Our sons and daughters might be
more willing lo learn the Creole language, others can learn about our
writers, poets, music and more. Those of you who are computer literate; you
know how effortless to read a great article from a foreign language without
speaking it. When something is good, one has to support it. ... ask yourself
if we Haitians can assist in helping the only institution that is working
[o]n creating a translator for the Creole language."


Senou and All Corbetters:

I deeply appreciate the sentiments expressed by Senou in his recent Corbett
Post. I know that this was not the first time he has made such a public
appeal to Haitians and "Haiti Lovers" (several months ago he posted a similar
note to the Haiti 2004 List) and I deeply appreciate his advocacy -- not on
behalf of a particular person or company -- but on behalf of technological
support of his 'mother tongue'.

He and I have never met and I did not know that he was going to make such an
appeal to the Corbett List. But, now that he has, I realize that the time has
come for me to bring all of you up-to-date on what is in the process of
happening to the project he described.

It has been dying a slow death almost since its birth in 1996. Probably for a
combination of reasons MIT2 (http://hometown.aol.com/mit2usa/Index2.html) has
never received the full support of any key sector which could have brought to
it the financial help which Senou has so eloquently described as being
critical to its success. Haitians. Haiti Lovers. The Haitian Government.
Funders of Haiti-related Development Projects. Linguists. The Business
Sector. The Educational Sector. The Publication Sector. The Literacy Sector.
The Software Company Sector. Etc.

In fact, over the 6 1/2 years of MIT2's life, other than life-long friends of
the Mason Family (which created MIT2), only 1 person in any of the above
categories put a penny into the project. A Haitian broadcaster (along with
his wife) in Boston.

Over the full life of MIT2, only $75,000 (dribble by dribble) was invested to
develop computer-based tools to support Creole Languages into the 21st
Century. Not enough to hire the research team for half a year; not enough to
purchase equipment and supplies; not enough to pay technology licensing fees;
not enough to hire the legal team to ensure the rights of those who would
offer data to the project; etc.

As a result of 6 1/2 years of receiving no MIT2 salary and paying out of our
own pockets the MIT2 research and development costs which exceeded the level
of investment capital, the key people with the technological skills needed to
bring this project to fruition: myself (as the inventor of CreoleScan and
CreoleConvert, the baseline tools to ensure the integrity of the databases
upon which spellcheckers or translators would be built) and my son (the
designated Chief Technology Officer of MIT2, who kept on working for a major
software development company in order to support the both of us and MIT2),
have been utterly bankrupted and drained of many of the basic necessities of
life.

Why did we hang on to the point of self-destruction? Because we believed in
the need, we knew nobody else was planning to develop such tools, and because
many promises of financial support had been made to us, but never kept.

But we are not masochists. We could not live like this forever. We,
therefore, are in the process of paying the legal costs to pronounce a proper
funeral for MIT2 and to deal honorably with our handful of investors.

We have no choice now but to "pick up the pieces" of our personal lives and
do the most we can with what we still have left to "continue the dream",
albeit in a much more modest, scaled-down way.

I have created The Creole Clearinghouse
(http://hometown.aol.com/CreoleCH/Index6.html), A CREOLE SERVICE NETWORK:
Utilizing Creole Software Tools and Creole Language Specialists to Equip
Editors, Publishers, and Translators for Today's Multilingual Challenges.

Building upon what was learned from the MIT2 experience, The Creole
Clearinghouse (TCC) will, in collaboration with a network of Creole
specialists, make use of tools I created before the birth of MIT2 to improve
the consistency and excellence of materials translated and produced in Creole.

TCC will market its services to governmental and non-governmental agencies,
school systems, academic institutions, industrial and commercial enterprises,
translation agencies, translators, editors, and publishers to provide such
"quality control" Creole text-processing services as:

CreoleConsult, CreoleScan, CreoleConvert, CreoleEdit, CreolePublishAssist,
and CreoleTranslateAssist

to digitize out-dated print-published texts which have never before existed
in electronic format, orthographically update digitized texts, provide
specialized value-added editing services, provide online publishing services,
custom-design publishing workflow systems and processes, verify conformance
to official orthographical standards of translator output, validate quality
of output of potential translation agency "new hires", identify "which
Creole" into which texts are to be translated and validate that a potential
translator qualifies for that particular Creole language, etc.

In addition, via CreoleLocalize, The Creole Clearinghouse, in collaboration
with its network of Creole language specialists, will provide guidance and
linguistically accurate data input to software developers wishing to expand
functionality of their products to include Creole languages. Software
developers, which make use of "questionable open source" word lists to build
the lexical bases of their multilingual tools, provide the Creole-speaking
public with "questionable" products. The Creole Clearinghouse intends to work
with software developers to ensure higher quality Creole-localized software
tools, as well as to encourage the establishment of and adherence to uniform
interface standards for all software localized to Creole languages.


There is an American proverb: There is more than one way to skin a cat.

The dream of creating such tools as Creole-English-Creole and
Creole-French-Creole translators and even inter-Creole convertors is alive
and well!

It's just going to take longer than we hoped. And, instead of waiting for the
magic day when investment income would come our way to fund such dreams, I'm
going to have to start earning a living through The Creole Clearinghouse.

But, here's the really great news: many of those on the "dream team" which
had been assembled in the name of MIT2
(http://hometown.aol.com/mit2usa/CorpOff.htm) want to continue to "hang
together" in support of the hopes and dreams of TCC.

Does even this scaled-down initiative need funding in addition to what we can
earn? Yes. If we really want such tools to be created for the advancement of
Creole Languages. They will not appear out of thin air.

Thank you, Senou, for your advocacy and for forcing me to write this note.
The things you dream of for your 'mother tongue' will only come to fruition
if those of us who care about such things get our heads and hearts and
pocketbooks together to "make them happen".

Marilyn

************************************************
Marilyn Mason
The Creole Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 181015
Boston, Massachusetts 02118 USA
Tel: (+1) 617-247-8885
Fax: (+1) 617-262-8923
Email: MariLinc@aol.com
Marilyn Mason Bio & Publication List:
http://hometown.aol.com/marilinc/Index3.html
Creole Links Page:
http://hometown.aol.com/mit2haiti/Index4.html

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